Presidential candidate of the All Nigeria Peoples Party, Maj.-Gen. Muhammadu Buhari(rtd.), has appealed the dismissal of
his suit challenging the
election of Alhaji Umaru Yar’Adua as the winner of the April 21, 2007
presidential election.
He took the decision in spite of an advice by governors of 19 states in the North not to do so. The Chairman of the Northern Governors Forum and Governor of Niger State, Babangida Aliyu, added that the current stance of Buhari and Atiku on the matter is capable of having serious implications for the region and its people. According to Aliyu the prosecution of the case at the Supreme Court would distract the attention of the Federal government.
The Presidential Election Tribunal had on Tuesday last week said the allegations contained in the consolidated petitions by Buhari and his Action Congress counterpart, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, were not convincing enough to make it nullify Yar’Adua’s victory. The retired general had immediately after the judgment, which he described as a ‘semi-final’, vowed to appeal the judgment.
In the suit filed on his behalf by Chief Mike Ahamba (SAN), on Friday, the former Head of State asked the Supreme Court to set aside the tribunal’s judgment. He said the election of Yar’Adua should be voided on the grounds of non-qualification and to declare the poll invalid. The Katsina-born general turned politician added that members of the tribunal erred in law when they wrongly placed the onus of proof on him.
He said that Section 146 (1) of the Electoral Act did not place the burden of proof on him as claimed by the panel. Buhari averred that the express provision of Section 146<1> was for the appropriate party to show that the non-compliance did not substantially affect the result of the election and not that the non-compliance affected the result of the election.
He further contended that his complaint was that the election was invalid but that the tribunal averred that he failed to establish substantial non-compliance with the Electoral Act law and thereby wrongly put the burden of proof on him. According to him, the findings of the court were inconsistent with the substance of his complaint before it.
The appellant also contended in his second grounds of appeal that the tribunal erred in law when it held that he offered no evidence upon which it could rely on to nullify the election. He stated that the case before the tribunal was that documentary exhibits presented before the court affected the validity of the election.
According to him, he had shown through various documentary evidence that in more than 80,000 out of the 120,000 polling units, more than 28 million out of the 35 million votes allegedly cast were irregular. Buhari pointed out that none of the respondents challenged the facts as presented before the tribunal and that it did not find the asserted statistics incorrect.
He stated that many results at the polling units, wards and Local government Areas in more than 20 states were written either before the election, or after the election and that all these formed part of the alleged final result which the tribunal still held as valid. He averred that the competence of the tribunal as a first instance court for the presidential election petitions tribunal does not include judicial review of administrative action and that the Abia State government was not before the court as a party.